MOVING BLOGS

So aside from band practice and watching Russell Peters live on his Notorious tour this weekend, I’ve created a new blog on the http://cgskoo.wordpress.com address I’ve been sitting on for a while now.

I’ve migrated everything there: all posts and pages from here, the media library, comments, archives, categories, tags, everything except the subscribers (which I might be asking the WordPress staff to help with) and the stats and the Likes (which can’t be moved). Spankin’ new blog is a bit cleaner, more minimalist, and carries a more professional variation of my name. 😉

I’m still definitely keeping this blog, which I’ve grown very fond of after 6 years, but I won’t be updating it. So change your subscriptions and bookmarks and RSS feeds and head over to the new blog! I’ll see you there!

An entirely beautiful people with a terrible problem

Humans, as a species, are constantly, and in every way, comparing themselves to one another, which, given the brief nature of their existence, seems an oddity and, for that matter, a waste. Nevertheless, this is the driving influence behind every human’s social development, their emotional health and sense of joy, and, sadly, their greatest tragedies…To be sure, it is killing them, and yet sustaining their social and economic systems. They are an entirely beautiful people with a terrible problem.

DONALD MILLER, Searching for God Knows What

My story to be in The Apex Book of World SF 3!

Novelist and editor Lavie Tidhar has asked me if he can reprint my story “Waiting with Mortals” for The Apex Book of World SF 3 next year!! This is my happy thought for the rest of the month. The previous volumes of the series featured big guns like Lauren Beukes, Zoran Živković, and Ekaterina Sedia, and have been reviewed by Strange Horizons. And I’m going to be a part of it too! Amazing, amazing stuff.

Check out Book 1 and Book 2!

Unbeaten by Rain: An Art Exhibit (HK)

Here’s the complete photo of Haruka’s painting that I had previously talked about here (and where you can see photos of it when it was in the middle of being painted). The piece is titled Mother and Child. I’d really recommend clicking on the picture to see it in full size so you get an idea of the textures.

Her solo exhibit runs from 22 February 2013 to 22 March 2013 in the art gallery in Yew Chung International School – Secondary (3 To Fuk Road) in Kowloon Tong. Opening hours are from 3:30PM to 7PM. I’ll be going to the opening reception!

This Is What It Looks Like

This is what it looks like when your Filipino friends in HK get together for Chickenjoy and Magic Mic karaoke!

My story in ISF#3 now available!

The third issue of International Speculative Fiction, which reprints my story “The Man on the Moon” (originally published in The Dragon and the Stars), is now live for download! I want to thank editor-in-chief Roberto Mendes for contacting me about reprinting my story, and fiction editor Ricardo Loureiro for writing the wonderful introduction to my story in the editorial:

Almost at the closing of the press (not the most accurate expression in this digital age, but nonetheless it conveys the idea) I came by Crystal Koo and her earth-shattering – in more ways than one – The Man in the Moon, a story for all the lovers, all the dreamers, and fitting to the end-of-times feeling that affects us all.

I had previously made the full-text of the story available in this blog for voting purposes for the 2011 Aurora Award (which the anthology won!); now that the story’s up in ISF, I’m cutting it down to an excerpt so everyone can hop on over to ISF to take a look!

An Amazing Thing

My friend Haruka is a fine artist in terms of being 1) an actress, 2) a painter, and 3) as someone I can talk to well beyond midnight about art and the importance of interpretation.  One of the things I most appreciate about dropping by her and her husband Gabe’s house is seeing her canvasses lined up against the walls.  She’s always working on something new and always asking me what I think and what I see. (I own one of her paintings too. It’s of Mont Saint-Michel and I hang it above my desk at work. I’ve gotten quite a number of good comments about it from my colleagues).

She’s having a solo exhibit here in Hong Kong on February. It’ll be named unbeaten by rain after the poem by Kenji Miyazawa. (I helped her come up with that title in English so she can have a line that scans well. There, I just had to say that.) The centerpiece will be a big painting that has fantastic color and presence. It’s her best work to date. I was so impressed by it I asked for the photos she had taken of her progress during the mere few weeks it took her to complete the painting.

I have photos of the completed painting but she doesn’t want them public just yet. (She wants a proper photo of it to show; these were taken on an iPhone.) I’ll put the proper photos up once she sends them to me and when it’s closer to the exhibit date. UPDATE: You can see the completed painting here. In the meantime, I want to try to understand how something like the second picture could turn into something like the second to the last. There’s a freedom and trust in the process that I try to have more of in my own writing.

And also: I’m fricking proud of my friend.

The Thrill of Seeing Oneself in Print

“I understood immediately the thrill of seeing oneself in print. It provides some sort of primal verification: you are in print; therefore you exist…Seeing yourself in print is such an amazing concept: you can get so much attention without actually having to actually show up somewhere…There are many obvious advantages to this. You don’t have to dress up, for instance, and you can’t hear them boo you right away.”

ANNE LAMOTT, Bird by Bird

ISF3# TOC Announced

The table of contents for the third issue of International Speculative Fiction is out! It includes a reprint of my story “The Man on the Moon.” My story was originally going to appear on the April issue but they realized they wanted it live earlier. This issue will be available on 25 January 2013.

ISF # 3 JANUARY 2013 

EDITORIAL

Ricardo Loureiro (Fiction Editor)

FICTION

Simon Jones (Australia)

Crystal Koo (Philippines)

Gerson Lodi-Ribeiro (Brazil)

Fernando Pina (Portugal)

ARTICLE

Jess Nevins – Pulp Scifi under German, Russian, Japanese and Spanish Totalitarism

INTERVIEW

Cristian Tamas interviews Professor Arielle Saiber with a focus on Italian SF

REVIEWS

Sean Wright reviews two Singaporean International Speculative Fiction Anthologies

Jorge Candeias reviews three Short Stories written by International Speculative Fiction Authors

COVER ART

Hauke Vagt (Germany)

Fast Girls

Just watched a UK movie called Fast Girls. It’s been a while since I watched a cheesy feel-good sports movie where you’re desperately rooting for the team to win by the end! (And I think this is the only UK sports movie I’ve seen after Bend It Like Beckham). Love the adrenaline you get in the end and the urge to go hit the track!!

The last song in the movie is Matt Cardle’s “Starlight.” Great stuff!